The invention relates to means for producing a rhythmic pattern of tones in an electronic organ, and in particular to means for generating such a pattern wherein the tones correspond to notes of a selected chord.
With recent developments in digital circuitry for organs and the advent of easy play features, it has become common practice to provide circuitry whereby patterns of notes are produced from memories and then automatically played by the organ with minimal effort on the part of the person playing the organ. In one configuration, chords are treated by analog methods to produce various combinations and sequences of sounds and in other configurations, digital techniques have been employed to produce the sequence of notes, one note at a time in a monophonic system. In other digital configurations, a plurality of notes are sounded together but the individual notes in each chord have not been treated in an individual, independent manner. In those instances where individual notes of the selected chord are treated in a digital manner, it has been with the two level on/off type keying inherent in those methods.
A drawback to many prior art systems wherein patterns of notes are generated automatically, is the relative complexity of the circuitry necessary to accomplish this result. Furthermore, it was often necessary to tailor the circuitry of the entire organ to accommodate this feature and it could not, therefore, be easily incorporated into existing organ circuitry.